April had an amazing ending for one Ladbrokes customer. They placed just 60p on a 16-team accumulator and received £157,865.59 when the bet was a winner.
The accumulator had been placed on the 16 Premier League and Championship matches taking place on Saturday April 30. There were odds of 263,109/1 on the bet being a winner and it proved to be a bumpy time for the lucky winner.
Their accumulator began with two 12.30pm kick-offs. Liverpool won 1-0 at Newcastle United as predicted. However, it wasn’t so easy for Preston to get a win at relegated Barnsley as perhaps thought. Barnsley took the lead after just 16 minutes, but Preston fought back to win 3-1 and the bet survived.
Most of the action took place at 3pm with 13 games being played. Three of the matches produced major problems for the 16-match accumulator. By 3.10pm, the bet was in big trouble.
The gambler had Burnley (17/10) to win at Watford who are in the bottom three and had lost ten home league games in a row. However, after just eight minutes Watford went 1-0 up. Good news for Sir Elton John, not such good news for this accumulator.
More problems swiftly followed as Crystal Palace (who had been backed at 2/1 to win) went a goal down at Southampton.
Going into the final 10 minutes of those two games, neither of the teams selected to win were leading. There were problems at Cardiff too and that was one of the most important games in the accumulator. The bet had the Welsh side to draw with Birmingham City at odds of 9/4. Going into the 82nd minute though, Birmingham had a 1-0 lead.
Then it all changed for this bet. Cardiff drew level in the 82nd minute and went on to draw 1-1. At Vicarage Road, Burnley equalized in the 83rd minute and then got the winning goal just three minutes later.
The other teams in the accumulator were: Aston Villa, Brighton, Bournemouth, Derby (a tasty 16/5 when beating Blackpool), Bristol City, Huddersfield, Millwall, West Bromwich Albion, Nottingham Forest, and Middlesbrough. All those teams did just what the punter wanted.
However, the chances of them winning were still in trouble at the St Mary’s Stadium. Palace had equalized at Southampton but had to win the game. In the 92nd minute Wilfried Zaha (who had come on as substitute) scored for Palace and the bet was still alive.
The final leg was Manchester City to win at Leeds United. The game began at 5.30pm and after only 13 minutes City took the lead. They went on to win 4-0 and the celebrations for the owner of this bet must have been celebrating long before the final whistle.
Speaking about the sensational win, Ladbrokes PR manager Alex Apati said of the win: “Our punter has played an absolute blinder here, correctly predicting the outcome of all 16 games in the top two tiers of English football on Saturday.
“What makes the acca even more impressive is that there was just one draw across all sixteen games, and our customer managed to pick it out; truly remarkable stuff and we’re delighted for them.”
